Vernalis, California.
Typical home $864,936 (+2.3% in a year). Modesto, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,898 (+72%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,497 +2%
- $845,439$864,936 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $68,331 -7%
- $933,267$864,936 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Vernalis$4,540
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Vernalis, CA rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Vernalis, Stanislaus County, California
The Census does not count Vernalis on its own, so the figures here are Stanislaus County's. Half the county's households earn more than $81,468 a year and half less; 14% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 61% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 39% are rented. Unemployment in Stanislaus County was 7.0% in August 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most people in Stanislaus County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Vernalis is a small community in Stanislaus County, in California's Central Valley, where the land is flat and farmed and rivers run through the area. Across the county, most homes are lived in by their owners, though a good number are rented. Typical home values run high, which can make buying a first home difficult for many newcomers.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops, or in the building trades. Across the county, job numbers were roughly flat over the last year, and unemployment has eased a little. A minority of adults hold a four-year degree, a typical commute takes a fair stretch of time, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge lies in or beside town and is a protected area for wildlife and walking. Caswell Memorial State Park, a state park a short drive away, is a good place to spend a day outdoors. For arts and culture, the Gallo Center for the Arts, a theatre a longer drive away, is the nearest venue on this list.
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- 177,874households
- 34.9median age
- 20%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What people in Stanislaus County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Stanislaus County had 199,343 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 56° and lows near 36°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 57°. About 13 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tracy Carbona weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Stanislaus County
- EJ Gallo WinerySite support functions2,477
- Memorial Hospital ModestoGeneral hospital2,029FTE
- Modesto City Elementary SchoolsSchool district1,794FTE
- Modesto Medical CenterGeneral medical and surgical hospitals1,720
- Kaiser PermanenteGeneral medical and surgical hospitals1,690
- Doctors Medical Center of ModestoGeneral hospital1,651FTE
- Turlock UnifiedSchool district1,567FTE
- Modesto City High SchoolsSchool district1,547FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 438 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 67,299 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- DroughtVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Stanislaus County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Stanislaus County and the Modesto, CA metro.
Vernalis home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Vernalis$864,936
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Vernalis address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Vernalis — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.